Open Office XML TC at OASIS

Date:      Mon, 04 Nov 2002 08:32:27 -0500
From:      Karl Best <karl.best@oasis-open.org>
To:        members@lists.oasis-open.org,
           tc-announce@lists.oasis-open.org,
           xml-dev@lists.xml.org,
           office@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject:   OASIS TC Call For Participation: Open Office XML TC

A new OASIS technical committee is being formed. The OASIS Open Office XML Format Technical Committee has been proposed by the following members of OASIS: Doug Alberg, Boeing; Michael Brauer, Sun Microsystems; Paul Bunkham, Sony; John Chelsom, CSW; Patrick Durusau, Society of Biblical Literature; Paul Grosso, Arbortext; Tom Magliery, Corel; Monica Martin, Drake Certivo; Daniel Vogelheim, Sun Microsystems; and the following individual members: Sean McGrath, Uche Ogbuji, and Lauren Wood.

The proposal for a new TC meets the requirements of the OASIS TC Process (see http://oasis-open.org/committees/process.shtml), and is appended to this message. The proposal, which includes a statement of purpose, list of deliverables, and proposed schedule, will constitute the TC's charter. The TC Process allows these items to be clarified (revised) by the TC members; such clarifications (revisions), as well as submissions of technology for consideration by the TC and the beginning of technical discussions, may occur no sooner than the TC's first meeting.

To become a member of this new TC you must 1) be an employee of an OASIS member organization or an Individual member of OASIS; 2) notify the TC chair, Michael Brauer (michael.brauer@sun.com) of your intent to participate at least 15 days prior to the first meeting; and 3) attend the first meeting on 16 December. You should also subscribe to the TC's mail list. Note that membership in OASIS TCs is by individual, and not by organization. You must be eligible for participation at the time you time you notify the chair.

The private mail list office@lists.oasis-open.org is for committee discussions. TC members as well as any other interested OASIS members should subscribe to the list by going to the mail list web page at http://lists.oasis-open.org/ob/adm.pl, or by sending a message to office-request@lists.oasis-open.org with the word "subscribe" as the body of the message. (Note that subscribing to the mail list does not make you a member of the TC; to become a member you must contact the TC chair and attend the first meeting as described in the preceeding paragraph.)

A public comment list will be available for the public to make comments on the work of this TC; a message may be sent to the TC via the address office-comment@lists.oasis-open.org.

The archives of both of these mail lists are visible to the public at http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/.

Additional information related to this topic is found on the Cover Pages at http://xml.coverpages.org/xmlFileFormats.html

-Karl

Karl F. Best
OASIS - Director, Technical Operations
+1 978.667.5115 x206
karl.best@oasis-open.org
http://www.oasis-open.org

OASIS Open Office XML Format TC

Name

The name of this TC shall be the OASIS Open Office XML Format TC.

Purpose

The purpose of this TC is to create an open, XML-based file format specification for office applications.

The resulting file format must meet the following requirements:

it must be suitable for office documents containing text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical documents
it must be compatible with the W3C Extensible Markup Language (XML) v1.0 and W3C Namespaces in XML v1.0 specifications
it must retain high-level information suitable for editing the document
it must be friendly to transformations using XSLT or similar XML-based languages or tools
it should keep the document's content and layout information separate such that they can be processed independently of each other
it should 'borrow' from similar, existing standards wherever possible and permitted

Since the OpenOffice.org XML format specification meets these criteria and has proven its value in real life, this TC will use it as the basis for its work.

Sun Microsystems intends to contribute the OpenOffice.org XML Format to this TC at the first meeting of the TC, under reciprocal Royalty Free terms.

A standard for office document processing and interchange will be of great utility to many users and software companies developing applications, and should be made available as soon as possible.

Thus, the work of this TC will be done in two phases:

1) In the first phase, this TC will use proven and established constructs so that the resulting standard can satisfy the immediate needs of many users, as well as serve as a base for future, less restricted development.

The work of this TC in the first phase will concentrate on the following areas:

A ) establishing a mechanism and policy for extensions, preferably relying on XML namespaces,

B) establishing a set of 'core' elements and attributes to be supported by all implementations,

C) incorporating feedback from early adopters of the base specification and fixing technical problems that may have been uncovered,

D) ensuring that the resulting specification and documentation are consistent and of high quality.

The TC aims to complete the first phase within six months of the TC's formation.

2) In the second phase, this TC will extend the base specification to encompass additional areas of applications or users.

The work of this TC in the second phase will additionally allow for the following areas:

A) enabling additional areas of application,

B) exploring new or experimental ideas for office document representation, and

C) extending the expressiveness of the format.

Deliverables

Each of the TC's phases will result in a Committee Specification that includes:

a set of XML DTDs/schemas setting the vocabulary, constraints and semantics of the file format in question, and
a set of written specifications that describe the elements and attributes of the DTDs/schemas in plain English.

At the appropriate time the TC shall submit its Committee Specifications for balloting by OASIS membership for OASIS standard status.

Under no circumstances shall the TC accept, during any phase, contributions that are not granted to all under perpetual, royalty free, non-discriminatory terms.

This TC shall not finalize or approve a specification if it believes that the use, distribution, or implementation of such specification would necessarily require the unauthorized infringement of any party's rights known to the technical committee, and such party has not agreed to provide necessary license rights on perpetual, royalty-free, non-discriminatory terms.

Language

The TC shall conduct its proceedings in English.

Meetings

The first meeting of the XML Office Documents TC will take place on December 16th 2002, from 8am to 12 noon, US Pacific time, over the phone, at a number to be provided to prospective participants no later than 5 days before the meeting. That date and time will be the time of record for establishing initial voting membership under the OASIS TC process.

A face to face meeting of the TC shall be arranged at the first meeting, to take place no later than three months after the initial phone meeting.

After the initial meeting the TC shall meet bi-weekly over the phone, except for the one face to face meeting mentioned above, during the first phase. During the second phase the TC shall meet monthly over the phone, or as it is agreed upon at that time.

TC Proposers

The following persons eligible to participate in OASIS technical committees state that they are committed to the purpose and schedule stated above:

Doug Alberg, Boeing (doug.alberg@boeing.com)
Michael Brauer, Sun Microsystems (michael.brauer@sun.com)
Paul Bunkham, Sony (paulb@dev.mms.sonybpe.com)
John Chelsom, CSW (john.chelsom@csw.co.uk)
Patrick Durusau, Society of Biblical Literature (pdurusau@emory.edu)
Paul Grosso, Arbortext (pgrosso@arbortext.com)
Tom Magliery, Corel (tom.magliery@corel.com)
Monica Martin, Drake Certivo (mmartin@certivo.net)
Sean McGrath, individual (sean.mcgrath@propylon.com)
Uche Ogbuji, individual (uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com)
Daniel Vogelheim, Sun Microsystems (daniel.vogelheim@sun.com)
Lauren Wood, individual (lauren@textuality.com)

Chair

The TC shall be chaired by Michael Brauer, Sun Microsystems.

Meeting Sponsors

The sponsor for face-to-face meetings during the first year shall be Sun Microsystems. The sponsor for phone meetings during the first year shall be Sun Microsystems.

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See [provisionally] "XML File Formats for Office Documents."

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The OASIS Open Office XML Format Technical Committee has been proposed by the following members of OASIS: Doug Alberg, Boeing; Michael Brauer, Sun Microsystems; Paul Bunkham, Sony; John Chelsom, CSW; Patrick Durusau, Society of Biblical Literature; Paul Grosso, Arbortext; Tom Magliery, Corel; Monica Martin, Drake Certivo; Daniel Vogelheim, Sun Microsystems; and the following individual members: Sean McGrath, Uche Ogbuji, and Lauren Wood. The proposal for a new TC meets the requirements of the OASIS TC Process (see http://oasis-open.org/committees/process.shtml), and is appended to this message. The proposal, which includes a statement of purpose, list of deliverables, and proposed schedule, will constitute the TC's charter. The TC Process allows these items to be clarified (revised) by the TC members; such clarifications (revisions), as well as submissions of technology for consideration by the TC and the beginning of technical discussions, may occur no sooner than the TC's first meeting. To become a member of this new TC you must 1) be an employee of an OASIS member organization or an Individual member of OASIS; 2) notify the TC chair, Michael Brauer (michael.brauer@sun.com) of your intent to participate at least 15 days prior to the first meeting; and 3) attend the first meeting on 16 December. You should also subscribe to the TC's mail list. Note that membership in OASIS TCs is by individual, and not by organization. You must be eligible for participation at the time you time you notify the chair. The private mail list office@lists.oasis-open.org is for committee discussions. TC members as well as any other interested OASIS members should subscribe to the list by going to the mail list web page at http://lists.oasis-open.org/ob/adm.pl, or by sending a message to office-request@lists.oasis-open.org with the word "subscribe" as the body of the message. (Note that subscribing to the mail list does not make you a member of the TC; to become a member you must contact the TC chair and attend the first meeting as described in the preceeding paragraph.) A public comment list will be available for the public to make comments on the work of this TC; a message may be sent to the TC via the address office-comment@lists.oasis-open.org. The archives of both of these mail lists are visible to the public at http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/. Additional information related to this topic is found on the Cover Pages at http://xml.coverpages.org/xmlFileFormats.html -Karl Karl F. Best OASIS - Director, Technical Operations +1 978.667.5115 x206 karl.best@oasis-open.org http://www.oasis-open.org OASIS Open Office XML Format TC Name The name of this TC shall be the OASIS Open Office XML Format TC. Purpose The purpose of this TC is to create an open, XML-based file format specification for office applications. The resulting file format must meet the following requirements: it must be suitable for office documents containing text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical documents it must be compatible with the W3C Extensible Markup Language (XML) v1.0 and W3C Namespaces in XML v1.0 specifications it must retain high-level information suitable for editing the document it must be friendly to transformations using XSLT or similar XML-based languages or tools it should keep the document's content and layout information separate such that they can be processed independently of each other it should 'borrow' from similar, existing standards wherever possible and permitted Since the OpenOffice.org XML format specification meets these criteria and has proven its value in real life, this TC will use it as the basis for its work. Sun Microsystems intends to contribute the OpenOffice.org XML Format to this TC at the first meeting of the TC, under reciprocal Royalty Free terms. A standard for office document processing and interchange will be of great utility to many users and software companies developing applications, and should be made available as soon as possible. Thus, the work of this TC will be done in two phases: 1) In the first phase, this TC will use proven and established constructs so that the resulting standard can satisfy the immediate needs of many users, as well as serve as a base for future, less restricted development. The work of this TC in the first phase will concentrate on the following areas: A ) establishing a mechanism and policy for extensions, preferably relying on XML namespaces, B) establishing a set of 'core' elements and attributes to be supported by all implementations, C) incorporating feedback from early adopters of the base specification and fixing technical problems that may have been uncovered, D) ensuring that the resulting specification and documentation are consistent and of high quality. The TC aims to complete the first phase within six months of the TC's formation. 2) In the second phase, this TC will extend the base specification to encompass additional areas of applications or users. The work of this TC in the second phase will additionally allow for the following areas: A) enabling additional areas of application, B) exploring new or experimental ideas for office document representation, and C) extending the expressiveness of the format. Deliverables Each of the TC's phases will result in a Committee Specification that includes: a set of XML DTDs/schemas setting the vocabulary, constraints and semantics of the file format in question, and a set of written specifications that describe the elements and attributes of the DTDs/schemas in plain English. At the appropriate time the TC shall submit its Committee Specifications for balloting by OASIS membership for OASIS standard status. Under no circumstances shall the TC accept, during any phase, contributions that are not granted to all under perpetual, royalty free, non-discriminatory terms. This TC shall not finalize or approve a specification if it believes that the use, distribution, or implementation of such specification would necessarily require the unauthorized infringement of any party's rights known to the technical committee, and such party has not agreed to provide necessary license rights on perpetual, royalty-free, non-discriminatory terms. Language The TC shall conduct its proceedings in English. Meetings The first meeting of the XML Office Documents TC will take place on December 16th 2002, from 8am to 12 noon, US Pacific time, over the phone, at a number to be provided to prospective participants no later than 5 days before the meeting. That date and time will be the time of record for establishing initial voting membership under the OASIS TC process. A face to face meeting of the TC shall be arranged at the first meeting, to take place no later than three months after the initial phone meeting. After the initial meeting the TC shall meet bi-weekly over the phone, except for the one face to face meeting mentioned above, during the first phase. During the second phase the TC shall meet monthly over the phone, or as it is agreed upon at that time. TC Proposers The following persons eligible to participate in OASIS technical committees state that they are committed to the purpose and schedule stated above: Doug Alberg, Boeing (doug.alberg@boeing.com) Michael Brauer, Sun Microsystems (michael.brauer@sun.com) Paul Bunkham, Sony (paulb@dev.mms.sonybpe.com) John Chelsom, CSW (john.chelsom@csw.co.uk) Patrick Durusau, Society of Biblical Literature (pdurusau@emory.edu) Paul Grosso, Arbortext (pgrosso@arbortext.com) Tom Magliery, Corel (tom.magliery@corel.com) Monica Martin, Drake Certivo (mmartin@certivo.net) Sean McGrath, individual (sean.mcgrath@propylon.com) Uche Ogbuji, individual (uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com) Daniel Vogelheim, Sun Microsystems (daniel.vogelheim@sun.com) Lauren Wood, individual (lauren@textuality.com) Chair The TC shall be chaired by Michael Brauer, Sun Microsystems. Meeting Sponsors The sponsor for face-to-face meetings during the first year shall be Sun Microsystems. The sponsor for phone meetings during the first year shall be Sun Microsystems. Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See [provisionally] "XML File Formats for Office Documents."